Ultimately, business is all about getting results – results for clients, results for the business and results for the people who work in and for the business – and businesses are hungry for whatever can help them get bigger, better results more easily. Last week I was invited in to give a presentation to a…

It is so easy to think we have things figured out in life and without someone to robustly challenge our assumptions we just continue to think them – at times to our cost. This is one of the reasons coaching is so powerful. You have someone totally on your side and yet, at the same…

According to a survey published by Channel 5, 76% of people believe happiness is linked to money but 34% don’t agree that money can buy you happiness. So, who is right? The majority or the minority? Dr. Elizabeth Dunn, author of ‘Happy Money: The science of happier spending’ is quoted as saying… “If money doesn’t…

“Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. An enlightened business leader was teaching a group of new entrepreneurs about increasing their level of success, and he wanted to demonstrate what…

I was an enthusiastic devourer of self-help and personal development material for well over twenty years, although I have now been in healthy recovery for nearly seven years now. During my addiction I always noticed how much material there is on finding your life’s purpose. Have you ever noticed this? It is a very seductive…

Getting deep into the world of your client is the only way you can get to understand them and what they want, and put yourself in a position to deliver beyond their expectations. This is actually far easier than many people seem to make it. What is the starting point? Get yourself out of the…

A couple of years ago I attended a conference in Oslo and one of my memories is of Dr. Aaron Turner make a particularly powerful point. Aaron shared a story about a time he was holidaying in Hawaii with his family. They were spending some time on the beach and he was standing in the…

There are many factors involved in the process of creating, running and continually improving your business. Getting clients, servicing them, building an infrastructure, innovating, responding to changes… Success in any of these activities is under-pinned by the quality of thinking that is brought to each one. A client and I were talking about this and…

In my recent post ‘No pressure selling and influence part 2’ I touched upon the fact that humans are not driven by reason and logic – we are driven by emotion. Our behaviour is driven by our feeling state. The decisions we make come from how we feel. And what we are all ultimately looking for…

About 18 months ago I published an article titled ‘Qualified Financial Planner – but holding back?’. The inspiration for the piece was actually a friend of mine who’s an adviser. He had work really hard to get his financial planning qualifications and yet he wasn’t putting into practice any of what he’d learned. He was…